illiterate web

It has surprised and pleased me to see that you and others have detected the falseness of much of Mr. Mivart's reasoning. I wish I had read your lectures a month or two ago, as I have been preparing a new edition of the "Origin," in which I answer some special points, and I believe I should have found your lectures useful; but my MS. is now in the printer's hands, and I have not strength or time to make any more additions.

P.S.--By an odd coincidence, since the above was written I have received your very obliging letter of October 23rd. I did notice the point to which you refer, and will hereafter reflect more over it. I was indeed on the point of putting in a sentence to somewhat of the same effect in the new edition of the "Origin," in relation to the query--Why have not apes advanced in intellect as much as man? but I omitted it on account of the asserted prolonged infancy of the orang. I am also a little doubtful about the distinction between gregariousness and sociability.

...When you come to England I shall have much pleasure in making your acquaintance; but my health is habitually so weak that I have very small power of conversing with my friends as much as I wish. Let me again thank you for your letter. To believe that I have at all influenced the minds of able men is the greatest satisfaction I am capable of receiving.

LETTER 248. TO E. HACKEL. Down, December 27th, 1871.

I thank you for your very interesting letter, which it has given me much pleasure to receive. I never heard of anything so odd as the Prior in the Holy Catholic Church believing in our ape-like progenitors. I much hope that the Jesuits will not dislodge him.

What a wonderfully active man you are! and I rejoice that you have been so successful in your work on sponges. (248/1. "Die Kalkschwamme: eine Monographie; 3 volumes: Berlin, 1872. H.J. Clark published a paper "On the Spongiae Ciliatae as Infusoria flagellata" in the "Mem. Boston Nat. Hist. Soc." Volume I., Part iii., 1866. See Hackel, op. cit., Volume I., page 24.) Your book with sixty plates will be magnificent. I shall be glad to learn what you think of Clark's view of sponges being flagellate infusorians; some observers in this country believe in him. I am glad you are going fully to consider inheritance, which is an all-important subject for us. I do not know whether you have ever read my chapter on pangenesis. My ideas have been almost universally despised, and I suppose that I was foolish to publish them; yet I must still think that there is some truth in them. Anyhow, they have aided me much in making me clearly understand the facts of inheritance.

I have had bad health this last summer, and during two months was able to do nothing; but I have now almost finished a next edition of the "Origin," which Victor Carus is translating. (248/2. See "Life and Letters," III., page 49.) There is not much new in it, except one chapter in which I have answered, I hope satisfactorily, Mr. Mivart's supposed difficulty on the incipient development of useful structures. I have also given my reasons for quite disbelieving in great and sudden modifications. I am preparing an essay on expression in man and the lower animals. It has little importance, but has interested me. I doubt whether my strength will last for much more serious work. I hope, however, to publish next summer the results of my long-continued experiments on the wonderful advantages derived from crossing. I shall continue to work as long as I can, but it does not much signify when I stop, as there are so many good men fully as capable, perhaps more capable, than myself of carrying on our work; and of these you rank as the first.

With cordial good wishes for your success in all your work and for your happiness.